I received an e-mail tonight from an old friend...or should I say "friend of long duration", because we are anything but old. We were friends in grade school and high school, back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Something wonderful happens when we keep in touch with people we knew when. We go back to when. You know "when we were young" and the biggest responsibility in our lives was getting up to go to school. There is a joy that I feel when I hear from an old friend. I guess because that voice, even if it is an e-mail, can take me right back to those days.

If we only knew then what we know now, but that is not the nature of living. For it is in the "living" that we grow to become who we are supposed to be. If we don't taste the sour, how will we ever know what sweet tastes like. Life is like that. We have to go through many experiences to become the person we are today. Some experiences are wonderful, many are not. However, all these times mold us and help us grow.

The lucky ones of us get through the fire unscathed and come out the other side better than we could have imagined when, you know, when we were young. I remember my mother saying to me, "if you would only listen to me". "I've been there, my experience can help you."

Would it were, that their experiences, their life lessons could have molded us. As parents we want to make life easier for our children. But the truth is, we all have to feel the pain or the joy ourselves, so when we are not so young, the decisions we make will be right. Perhaps, not right all the time, but most of the time.

For those of us lucky enough to live a full life, we have many battle scars. Thankfully, most of them don't show. However, once in a while something touches one of those scars and we feel the pain again just as we did the 1st time. Tonight I was reminded that we don't all get to live a full life.

Too many people in my life left too early. Too early to see the accomplishments of my siblings as well as mine. Too early to know grandchildren and the joy they bring. Too early to live a "full and rewarding" life. Those are scars that never truly heal. We just bandage them and move on.

So tonight I am grateful to have heard from this dear old friend, for he has allowed me to go back to that innocent time of our lives. To remember all the fun we had as kids at Oketo Park and at each others houses. I am filled with joy tonight because I got something as simple as an e-mail. Thank you Michael.

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